


won't you let me win this time?

by 264feet



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Emotionally Repressed, Gen, Suicide, Undertale Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 15:53:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6015139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/264feet/pseuds/264feet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flowey learns the difference between "can't" and "won't".</p>
            </blockquote>





	won't you let me win this time?

**Author's Note:**

> (Edited 11/7/17- grammatical & a few canon mistakes fixed. Most of the story is still the same.)

_*Interested, I began to experiment._  
_*Again and again, I brought myself to the edge of death._

...

Alive. Dancing with death was the only thing that made him feel alive.

Every gash and torn petal splashed color in Flowey's sepia tone world. An artist, he lived for those moments.

Something red hot burned inside him when he was hurt. It oozed out of his wounds, erupted like lava up his back. Something primal. White flashed before his eyes and it faded to grey and blue and whatever he saw when he closed his eyes. When he would scream, it would be his own piercing voice rather than the dull tone of "Flowey".

Asgore caught Flowey hurting himself early on. He believed it was an 'accident'. He always was gullible-- or maybe he didn't want to stomach any more pain.

"I do not want any more accidents to happen to my child," Asgore murmured to him.

As if it had been an accident, Flowey thought. As if I didn't fail them.

Hearing Asgore say 'child' instead of 'children', too, drained all Flowey's colors out of his roots. No matter how nearby Asgore he was in those days, he felt like the only creature left alive in the world.

...

_*No! I don't want to die!_

Flowey felt himself losing consciousness. Searing hot pain split his body in half. He could almost feel where his arms and legs used to be; he could almost envision every blow the humans left on his original body.

He thought of Chara in the last moments before he died the first time. Chara mused about death a lot, especially in their days rooted to their deathbed before poison took them. Monster souls and human souls were different-- knowing this was a fundamental part of the plan, of course. But Asriel couldn't help but wonder: was there an afterlife for monsters? Would he and Chara see each other again if his own monster soul became dust?

_*If you don't have a SOUL, what happens when you...?_

Flowey didn't want to die. He wanted to live.

But his Resets could never take him back far enough.

...

On the surface for the first time of his life, Asriel couldn't help but balk at everything. The warmth of the sun on his face. Wind whistling through the grass, tickling his toes. The sky was so blue, like flowing water without end. He marveled at everything that Chara had taken for granted.

His sibling was so annoyed; they told him not with words but-- they could communicate without words by then. Chara had been an excellent liar, but even they couldn't hold back a tinge of excitement seeing Asriel so amazed.

As complete as Asriel felt with Chara's soul merged with his body, sadness weighed him down. Sadness that he and Chara would never play catch outside on days like this or listen to birds singing or have any japes or just lay in the grass and stare at the passing clouds. They were closer than ever, but still so far apart. 

He snapped out of his stupor when something primal roared inside him. Something Flowey died to try to bring back to life. Determination.

He didn't look at the sky again as he marched toward the human village.

...

Once, Asriel had asked Chara what the sun was like.

Chara had stared upward for a long time before answering. They said Mom and Dad's fire magic were like little bits and pieces of the sun in their hands. Flowey could remember how they pronounced every syllable.

"No matter where you are, it's there," Chara had said. "Enough that you nearly forget about it, but you never can."

Asriel leaned closer in. The scent of crayon was thick in the air. It was the last time Chara had drawn the sun in a picture.

"But you know when it's gone," they finished.

...

The first time Flowey died, it was after he'd watched Toriel use fire magic to scare away a human.

After she scared them away, Flowey had watched her sob in her reading chair, feeling nothing. She cried onto the only one of Asgore's magazines that she had left. It was a human relic about gardening. On the cover, it said there were flowers that always faced the sun. 

He watched Asgore kill the human. Asgore, who had started blubbering once when he stepped on a sapling. Asgore, who had never so much as raised a fist at Chara. Something wasn't right. Asriel had stood so steadfast against violence, but he never knew his parents were so weak-willed. He supposed he should have figured it out, how much they were willing to overlook during his and Chara's plan. 

Flowey attacked Toriel with a newfound resignation. He never meant to kill. That discovery would come later. He wanted her to 'scare him off'. Just like would happen in so many runs afterward. She wouldn't yet call him 'a miserable creature'. She didn't know. 

Only at the last second did he duck into one of the largest fireballs. The rest vanished from the battlefield like a switch had been flipped. Flowey lit up like a match. Toriel covered her mouth as if to hold back a scream. The searing pain roared in every cell of his body, but this time, he didn't scream as well.

For the first time since he woke up in an Underground without Chara, Flowey felt the sun.

...

Panic. Fear. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to abandon Chara. What if they were still around? What if they would come back like him? What if they weren't waiting for him where he was going? 

He woke up in the garden again.

It appeared to be the same time of day of when he first woke up here. Asgore would come through in a few hours-- no sooner even if Flowey called out for help.

The child wasn't sure if this was some kind of act of mercy or a punishment. The last thing he remembered beforehand was returning with Chara's body and dying. Why had he been brought back and not them? Why did his revival have to be like this? 

When he hurt himself, some kind of sap oozed from his deepest cuts. Sometimes he could notice that dust was flaking off in specks or in chunks. But beyond the sap and dust and whatever was inside him, he felt hollow. If he hadn't failed to kill himself either time, would anyone have noticed he was gone? People mourned Asriel (because they didn't know what he tried to do, he noted bitterly)-- but nobody would miss 'Flowey'.

Flowey wondered if any of Chara's soul was still within him. It would explain why he had this power. Chara was the most powerful person he knew.

Was.

"Ch-- Chara, is that you?" he tried once. He hated how his voice sounded. It wasn't his voice. "Are you there?"

Silence. Far off, Flowey heard Asgore's shuffling footsteps. What had it been like to look at that man and feel love and admiration and want to call him 'dad' and have him pick you up in his big arms? Flowey couldn't even remember feeling that kind of emotion, now.

"I-- I know our last game... I know I let us down. I'm sorry.

...Are you punishing me?" his voice came out a squeak.

The silence tore him into shreds.

"Please, stop it... I don't want this anymore." Flowey almost noticed his voice had almost become Asriel's again. "I-I'm sorry I was a coward. I just want to be with you again... Please come back."

But nobody came.

...

_*I became "friends" with everyone._

"Did you know how humans know when it's time to go to bed?"

"OH! DO THEIR BROTHERS CALL THEM FOR THEIR BEDTIME STORIES?" Papyrus said. He had his chin in his hands, smiling so wide that it stretched what should have been possible for his facial structure.

Something in Flowey's mind said: You should be happy, too. Be happy for your "friend". And so Flowey put on a smile with as much apathy as he'd have exercising any other muscles.

"Nope, you silly goose!" Flowey even winked. Something churned in his core like a stomach flu. Why couldn't he feel actually happy? "The Sun- that's the big ball in the sky I was telling you about- goes down and it gets really dark! Then, everyone has to go home and go to bed."

"WOW! BUT... WHERE DOES THE SUN GO? DOES IT GO TO SLEEP TOO?"

Flowey pretended to think. He and Chara hadn't gotten that far.

(For how effortless it was to make a smile, it was difficult for Flowey to maintain one.)

"Not quite, champ. It actually becomes day on the other side of the world! All the people living over there wake up and start their days, then!"

Papyrus seemed to be lost in thought. Probably just imagining the sun, Flowey thought. Predictable. It was like a vending machine: put in one thing and something you expected comes out.

"FLOWEY, YOU'RE SO SMART!" Papyrus beamed. "ALMOST AS SMART AS MY BROTHER CAN BE! ...WHEN HE WANTS TO BE."

Even before Flowey reset again and again, Sans looked at him as if there were an exposed zipper on his face-- as if 'Flowey the Flower' didn't fit quite right. "IT WOULD BE GREAT IF THE THREE OF US COULD SEE THE SUN TOGETHER!" Papyrus was saying. "BUT IF WE WERE ALL TOGETHER, ONE OF US COULDN'T STAND ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD TO SEE THE SUN RISE OVER THERE..."

Something unexpected came from Flowey's own mouth: "Would that make you happy, Papyrus?"

The skeleton's smile wavered. "OF COURSE IT WOULD! JUST A COOL DUDE AND HIS TWO COOLEST FRIENDS IN THE WORLD!"

Flowey tried again to remember what 'happy' felt like. It involved smiling. He had that part down, minus the fuzzy feeling.

He thought back to his happiest moment. It would have to have been there, looking with Chara up at the sun. What did he feel then?

... Warmth. It felt warm, all-encompassing. It felt like he was alive. Even if it weren't freezing in the forests of Snowdin, Flowey hadn't felt warm in ages; he'd lost track of time since he got the ability to reset it. Happy felt warm, and pain was searing hot and let him feel again.

Eventually, Flowey would realize the two concepts had blended in his mind.

In the present, he had gone quiet. Papyrus put a hand on Flowey's back. The flower winced as if he'd been struck. "FLOWEY? ARE YOU OKAY?"

It was something he'd been asked so many times by Chara, and Asriel always made himself feel okay, he swallowed all the pain back down because he had to be strong for Chara. Did he swallow so much pain it was all he could feel now?

But this wasn't Chara and he wasn't Asriel. "N-no," Flowey muttered.

"HUH?"

"No," Flowey said, louder. He surprised himself that time. "I feel... tired."

"TIRED AS IF THE SUN WENT DOWN?"

"... Tired as if it went down and never came back up." His voice was so soft.

This is just another game, he thought. You're just seeing what response he'll give 'this' time.

Papyrus looked as if he'd been hit this time. His jaw was agape. At least this response was new, Flowey thought, and hated himself for it.

"I... I DON'T GET IT," Papyrus said.

"I know."

Papyrus paused. Then: "THE SUN DOES COME BACK, THOUGH, DOESN'T IT? IT'S JUST... ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD FOR YOU RIGHT NOW. I DON'T KNOW HOW LONG IT SPENDS OVER THERE OR WHAT IT DOES WHILE IT'S THERE, BUT IT WILL COME BACK."

Then: silence. Flowey just stared up into the darkness where he knew the ceiling of the cave was. It seemed impossibly far up. On the surface, Asriel had thought the sun was so big and close, but he knew through shared knowledge with Chara that it actually was very far away.

Something fell into the snow. There was a soft and wet spot in front of him. Had some of the rain from Waterfall come over here somehow? Flowey wondered.

Only when Papyrus hugged him did he realize he was crying. It didn't feel like crying-- not like it had while he was Asriel. It was as if he was trying to express a familiar concept in a foreign language.

The physical contact made Flowey's body tense up as if he were plastic. He didn't like this. He didn't deserve this. Flowey tugged himself down under the snow and left himself shivering in the frozen dirt. He pictured Papyrus hugging empty air. Confused. Alone. At least he has Sans to go back to, he thought. 

There, buried in his own makeshift grave, Flowey realized what he had to do.

...

It was the fourth or fifth time Flowey killed himself. Monsters truly are weaker, he thought. It only took Chara one try.

I want to die, he thought this time. A weight lifted off of him. He felt hollow still, but didn't expect himself to feel otherwise. I want it to be over.

This time, the pain didn't rip him apart. It wasn't white-hot. It was just warm. Flowey noticed things around him for once-- not in the analytic paranoia of a kill-or-be-killed world, but as if he were on the surface for the first time again. The flowers of Asgore's garden weren't as bright as the ones on the surface, but it amazed Flowey how they thrived all the way down there. Cool, damp air soothed his petals, his leaves. The air tasted like soft loam and clean cotton and blue and white and green.

Afraid of messing up the 'happiness' concept, Flowey pulled his face into a smile as things began to fade away.

...

He woke up in the garden again.

Flowey felt the ground reverberate with Asgore's footsteps. He was a few rooms over-- probably just cleaning. Sans and Papyrus were in Snowdin, oblivious to his existence. It wasn't the first time that love had been yanked away from Flowey.

Fog filled his mind. Was this it? Was this already the afterlife? That answered Asriel's worries at the least. He didn't have to worry about never seeing Chara again. Now he knew he would never see Chara again.

It felt like he was dying again. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. Flowey choked out a sob. Asgore and Toriel didn't come running to ruffle his fur and wipe up his tears; Chara didn't call him a crybaby and stick their tongue out at him; he tried to reach his arm up and mop up his own tears and then he _realized_ again.

It was only then that Flowey learned there was a difference. It wasn't something he would tell Chara, when, against every possibility, they returned. It was the difference between not wanting to die and not being able to die.


End file.
